Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

"It wasn't."

"Good," he said. Reaching out, he grabbed her slender ankles and gave her a comical leer. "Since none of my patients are doing us the discourtesy of interrupting our Saturday night by stroking out, get your sweet body into this pool and show me you still love me."

"Dick," she said in a strained voice, "it was my father who called just now."

"What's wrong?" he said, sobering at once and shoving up and out of the pool.

"He said Zack Benedict just called him."

"Benedict?" Dick repeated scornfully, grabbing a towel and drying his arms. "If that creep is actually hanging around Los Angeles, he's not only a murderer, he's a nut. The cops will grab him in no time. What did he want?"

"Me. Zack told my father," she explained, her voice trembling, "that he thinks I know who really killed Rachel. He said he wants me to tell the newspapers who it was, so he doesn't have to kill everyone who was there that day." She shook her head as if to clear it and when she spoke again, the fear was gone. "It had to be a crank. Zack would never threaten me, let alone hurt me. Regardless of what you seem to think, Zack wasn't a creep. He was the finest man I ever met, next to you."

"You're sure in the minority if that's what you believe."

"It's what I know. Regardless of what you heard and saw during the trial, the truth is that Rachel Evans was a vicious, scheming bitch who deserved to die! The only thing that was wrong was that Zack went to jail for it." With a grim laugh, she said, "No one thought Rachel was much of an actress, but the truth is she was a brilliant actress—she was so damned good that hardly anyone ever guessed what she was really like behind that smile of hers. She came off as elegant and sort of reserved and very nice. She was nothing like that. Nothing! She was an alley cat."

"What do you mean? A slut?"

"That too, but it isn't what I meant," Emily said, reaching out and folding a wet towel he'd left near an umbrella table. "I mean that she was like a cat who prowls through alleys, looking through other people's trash cans, feeding on them without them ever realizing it."

"Very colorful," her husband teased, "but not very explanatory."

Emily flopped back on the lounge chair and tried to be more specific. "If Rachel knew someone wanted something—a part in a film, a man, a particular chair on the set—she went out of her way to make sure they didn't get it, even if she didn't want it. I mean, poor Diana Copeland was in love with Zack—really in love with him—but she kept it completely to herself and never made an overture toward him. I was the only one who knew it, and I found out completely by accident."

When she fell silent, staring at the lights in the pool, Dick said, "You've never wanted to talk about Benedict or the trial, but since you're doing it now, I'll admit to having an avid curiosity about the stuff that never made the newspapers. It never came out that Diana Copeland was in love with Benedict."

Emily nodded, accepting his request for more information. "I made it a policy never to talk about any of that because I couldn't trust anyone, even men I dated, not to go blabbing to some reporter who'd misquote the whole thing and stir everything up again." She smiled at him and wrinkled her small nose. "I guess I can make an exception now, though, since you've vowed to honor and cherish me."

"I guess you can," he said with an answering grin.

"I didn't find out how Diana felt until a few months after the trial, when Zack was already in prison. I'd written him one letter and sent it to him there, but it came back unopened with 'Return to sender' scrawled across it in Zack's handwriting. A few days later, Diana came to see me. Of all things, she wanted me to send Zack a letter she'd written to him, but in an envelope from me. He'd returned her letter the same way he'd returned mine. I knew he'd also returned letters from Harrison Ford and Pat Swayze, and I told her all that. The next thing I knew, Diana was crying her heart out."

"Why?"

"Because she'd just come back from Texas, where she'd tried to surprise Zack with a visit. When he saw her on the other side of the screen, he turned his back on her without a word and told the guards to get her out of there. I told her I was certain it was because he was ashamed and didn't want any of his old friends to see him, and that's when she started to cry. She said the prison he was in was like a giant nightmare, that it was dirty and squalid, and that they made Zack wear a prison uniform."

"What did she expect him to be wearing, a Brooks Brothers suit?"

Emily gave a sad little laugh and explained, "Seeing him dressed like that was what hurt her so much. Anyway, she started to cry, and she told me she'd been in love with him and that's why she'd changed her schedule and took a lesser part in Destiny—to be near him. Rachel guessed how Diana felt somehow, because she teased her about having a crush on Zack one day, and when Diana didn't deny it, Rachel made a point of climbing all over Zack whenever Diana was around. Keep in mind that Rachel was already having an affair with Tony Austin and intended to file for divorce within days. Then, the following week—the same week Rachel died—several people heard her warn Zack not to use Diana in his next movie."

"Yes, but he never made another movie, so Diana didn't lose anything."

"That's not the point," Emily said. "The point is that Rachel was like a beautiful witch. She couldn't bear to see anyone happy. If she could figure out what you wanted, what would make you happy, no matter how small it was, she'd find a way to stop you from having it or to steal it from you."

Her husband studied her in silence for a long moment, then he said quietly, "What did she steal from you, Emily?"

Emily's head jerked up, and then she said, "Tony Austin."

"You're joking!"

"I wish I was," she said somberly. "There's just no accounting for the blind stupidity of youth. I was completely crazy about him."

"He's a junkie and a drunk! His career was already on the skids—"

"I know all that," Emily said, standing up. "But, you see, I thought I could save him from all that and himself, too. Years later, I figured out that was actually Tony's big appeal to women: He was so sexy and cool on the surface that you felt as if he could protect you from the world, then you discovered that part of him was actually a vulnerable little boy, and suddenly you wanted to protect him, too. That's probably why poor Tommy Newton was in love with him. Now, Zack was just the opposite of Tony—he didn't need anyone, and you felt it."